First Buzkashi League to Hold Opening Games in Kabul

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Buzkashi (file photo)

Tolo News: Officials of the Buzkashi Federation said on Sunday that the opening games for the first Buzkashi league will be held on Thursday, March 5, in Kabul’s Chaman-e-Hozoori area, and riders from 14 provinces will participate. The aim of this competition is to select the best riders for the national Buzkashi team, according to officials, who say that teams from 14 provinces gathered at a lottery ceremony in Kabul city to form teams for the competition. Click here to read more (external link).

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Pakistan to close Afghan border crossing over coronavirus

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1TV: Pakistan will close a major border crossing with Afghanistan from Monday to prevent the spread of coronavirus, its embassy in Kabul said. Afghanistan has confirmed one case of coronavirus in the country… Pakistan has confirmed four cases of the deadly disease so far. Click here to read more (external link).

US-Taliban Deal Hits First Speedbump

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Ayesha Tanzeem
VOA News
March 1, 2020

Less than 24 hours after the United States signed a landmark agreement with the Afghan Taliban in Doha, its implementation has already hit its first speedbump.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced in Kabul Sunday that his government has made no commitment to release thousands of Taliban prisoners, a precondition to the start of talks between Taliban and other Afghan factions.

“The release of prisoners is not the United States authority, but it is the authority of the government of Afghanistan,” Ghani said.

The U.S.-Taliban deal sealed on Saturday requires Afghan parties to the conflict to open direct negotiations on or around March 10 to agree on a nationwide permanent cease-fire and future power-sharing.

However, some of the steps required to be taken in the run-up to the dialogue include the release of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners from Afghan jails and of 1,000 government security forces, who are held by the insurgents.

The Taliban have so far refused to acknowledge the Ghani administration as a legitimate government or to engage with it directly. As far they are concerned, they say they have settled the prisoner release issue with the Americans.

“We have decided the issue of our 5,000 prisoners with the Americans. They have promised in the agreement that those prisoners will be released before the start of the intra-Afghan negotiations. For us, this issue is settled,” said Khairullah Khairkhwah, a senior member of the Taliban negotiation team.

An Afghan delegation from Kabul arrived in Doha ahead of the signing ceremony to discuss prisoner releases and other issues with the Taliban but members of the insurgent group refused to meet them.

“We have not decided yet whether we are going to meet them,” Khairkhwah said after the deal signing Saturday. “We don’t know yet who they are and why they are here.”

Meanwhile, officials of the host country Qatar say they could facilitate the discussion without the two sides having to sit together.

“Negotiation sometimes does not mean you interact directly and face to face. There’s something which is called shuttle diplomacy. So, we can do this, as an option, to facilitate these talks without physically. . . facing, seeing, watching, and touching each other. Maybe this is something to start with,” said Mutlaq bin Majed Al-Qahtani, Special Envoy of the Qatari Foreign Minister for Counter Terrorism and Mediation of Conflict Resolution.

The deal, signed Saturday in Doha by chief U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban political office head Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was a culmination of 18 months of back and forth diplomatic efforts that stalled several times and almost broke off last September.

After President Donald Trump called off the negotiations following several deadly attacks that killed an American soldier, the Qatari government, which has hosted the Taliban political team since 2011 to facilitate negotiations, tried to save the process by negotiating incentives for the two sides to come to the table again.

“We thought about two things. Number one, to do a kind of hostage release or swap and the second one to work on reduction in violence,” Mutlaq said.

In November 2019, two hostages, an American and an Australian, held by Taliban for a few years, were released in exchange for three Taliban leaders, including Anas Haqqani, the younger brother of Taliban deputy chief and the head of Haqqani network Sirajuddin Haqqani. Soon after, negotiations between Khalilzad’s team and Taliban started again.

Mutlaq said along the way Qatar managed to establish two channels with the Taliban, one to facilitate the prisoner exchange and the other, a military channel, to monitor any violation of the agreement.

“Our military is involved in this as part of the discussions in Doha,” he said.

The agreement promises the drawdown of U.S. forces to 8,600 from the current 13,000 in the first 135 days. The rest of them will be withdrawn within 14 months conditional to Taliban compliance of the deal.

Taliban have to break ties with al-Qaida or any other militant group, fight Islamic State, and prevent territories under their control from being used for terrorist activity. They have to also negotiate with other Afghan factions on the future roadmap of Afghanistan, starting with negotiations on a permanent and comprehensive cease fire.

The Taliban promises to respect women’s rights and human rights granted under Islam, but many activists worry that under its severe interpretation of Islam, the group would try to limit their freedoms.

President Trump told reporters at the White House on Saturday he believed the Taliban would deliver on its counterterrorism pledges, but he warned that “if bad things happen” U.S. troops would swiftly return to Afghanistan

Meanwhile, partisan bickering and a post-election dispute in Kabul between Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah has made the formation of a representative team of Afghans more difficult. Many observers doubt the intra-Afghan negotiation would start within two weeks as scheduled.

Ayaz Gul contributed to this report.

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Trump Says U.S. Troops Will Begin Leaving Afghanistan ‘Immediately’

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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
March 1, 2020

U.S. President Donald Trump says American troops will “immediately” begin their withdrawal from Afghanistan following the signing of a historic agreement with the Taliban that could end the country’s 18-year war.

“Today — They will start immediately,” Trump told reporters at the White House on February 29 when asked when the soldiers will start to leave Afghanistan.

“No one should be criticizing this deal, after 19 years,” Trump said, adding that he will “be meeting personally with Taliban leaders in the not-so-distant future,” without being specific.

The comments came hours after an agreement was signed by the leader of the political wing of the Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, and Washington’s chief negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, in the Qatari capital, Doha.

The agreement lays out a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in return for various security commitments from the insurgents and a pledge to hold talks with the government in Kabul — which it so far has refused to do.

According to a joint declaration published by the U.S. and Afghan governments, the United States and NATO would withdraw all troops in Afghanistan within 14 months if the Taliban upholds the commitments made in the agreement.

The U.S. military has some 13,000 troops in Afghanistan and plans to immediately cut the level to 8,600, leading up to a potential final pullout in 2021.

Trump told a conservative political conference in suburban Maryland that if the Taliban lives up to its commitments, the war will “be over.”

“We can’t be the policeman for the world,” said Trump, who has often vowed to halt America’s involvement in “endless wars” around the world.

Nevertheless, Trump did receive some criticism because of the deal, with John Bolton, his former national security adviser, writing on Twitter that “signing this agreement with Taliban is an unacceptable risk to America’s civilian population.”

“This is an Obama-style deal. Legitimizing Taliban sends the wrong signal to [Islamic State] and al-Qaeda terrorists, and to America’s enemies generally,” he said, referring to former President Barack Obama, Trump’s predecessor.

Republican U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney under George W. Bush, also ripped the deal, saying the U.S. administration must explain how it will verify Taliban compliance.

“Today’s agreement with the Taliban includes concessions that could threaten the security of the United States,” she said.

Many experts have also said that eventual talks, if they occur, between Afghan government officials and the Taliban could prove to be troublesome. Many in Kabul have rejected talks with the extremist group, expressing doubts about its sincerity and ability to control its fighters.

Trump, however, said he was optimistic that such talks will be successful, saying “everyone is tired of war.”

“The other side’s tired of war. Everybody is tired of war — a particularly long and gruesome one,” he said.

“We’ve had tremendous success in Afghanistan, in the killing of terrorists, but it’s time, after all these years, to go and to bring our people back home.”

Meanwhile, chief Taliban negotiator Abbas Stanikzai said, “There is no doubt we have won the war…This [is] why they are signing a peace treaty.”

With reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal, AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters, NYT, and the BBC

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

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US, Taliban Sign Historic Afghan Peace Deal

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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
February 29, 2020

ISLAMABAD – The United States and the Taliban signed a landmark agreement Saturday in Doha, Qatar, setting the stage for ending a nearly 19-year-old war in Afghanistan and bringing back home thousands of American troops deployed there.

U.S. chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban deputy chief for political affairs, inked the pact at a ceremony at a hotel in the Qatari capital where Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the foreign ministers of a number of countries were in attendance.

In a statement issued after the deal with the Taliban was signed, the White House noted President Donald Trump is making good on his promise to bring U.S. troops home from endless wars overseas by working toward peace in Afghanistan.

“An agreement has been reached with the Taliban that secures important commitments that are necessary to finally end the conflict in Afghanistan. While work remains, this progress provides a historic opportunity for peace,” the statement reads.

Under the agreement, Washington and its allies are committed to immediately begin withdrawal of all military forces from Afghanistan within 14 months from five bases there in return for guarantees Afghan soil will not harbor transnational terrorist groups.

Within the first 135 days, the number of American forces would be brought down to 8,600 from roughly 13,000 currently stationed in the country.

The Taliban also is committed to engage in peace negotiations with Afghan stakeholders on a permanent cease-fire and power-sharing in post-war Afghanistan. The intra-Afghan talks are supposed to begin within 10 days. In the days leading up to the those negotiations, the Afghan government is to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners while the insurgents have to free around 1,000 detainees from its custody.

“This agreement will mean nothing and today’s good feelings will not last if we don’t take concrete action on commitments and promises that have been made,” Pompeo told the signing ceremony in Doha.

He stressed that ultimately it will be up to Afghans to determine their future through intra-Afghan talks. “The U.S.-Taliban deal creates the conditions for Afghans to do just that.”

The reclusive Taliban chief, Haibatullah Akhundzada, who allegedly is living in Pakistan, urged his fighters to honor the peace, declaring it a victory for the insurgent group.

“This victory is the collective victory of the entire Muslim and Mujahid nation … The accord about the complete withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan … is undoubtedly a great achievement,” Akhundzada asserted in a statement released to media.

Pompeo in his speech to the signing ceremony said that “there will be a temptation to declare victory,” but he stressed that victory for Afghans will be achieved only when they can live in peace and prosper.

The secretary acknowledged, however, the intra-Afghan dialogue process would be challenging in terms of achieving its objective.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper also has issued a joint declaration with the government of Afghanistan, reassuring the turmoil-hit nation that the U.S.-led partners will remain committed to the peace process.

Esper told a news conference Saturday during his visit to Kabul that a lack of commitment on the part of the Taliban could force Washington to pull out of the agreement. He said the U.S. will closely watch the Taliban’s actions in terms of further reducing insurgent violence and showing progress in intra-Afghan negotiations to demonstrate their efforts toward peace are being made in good faith.  “

Should the Taliban fail to honor their commitments, they will forfeit their chance to sit with fellow Afghans and deliberate on the future of their country. Moreover, the United States would not hesitate to nullify the agreement,” Esper warned.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, while speaking along with Esper and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, said his government is ready to engage with the Taliban on a wider agenda to promote peace in the country.

“They should be ready to discuss their relationship with their state and non-state sponsors, a verifiable system for cutting off their ties with all transnational terrorist groups, their dependence and involvement narcotics and other transnational criminal organizations positively,” Ghani said.

The Taliban has consistently refused to engage in peace talks with Ghani and his government, however, dismissing it as an American puppet. The insurgent group says, though, it would not oppose participation of government officials in their individual capacity in intra-Afghan talks with an inclusive delegation comprising representatives of other Afghan political, as well as civil society, groups.

A reduction of violence agreement between the U.S. and Taliban went into effect seven days ago, and its success paved the way for Saturday’s signing.

Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai told VOA’s Afghan service, “We are very happy to see the signing taking place on Saturday. It’s a welcomed thing. And from that point on, we hope that the intra-Afghan dialogue will start as soon as possible so Afghans can sit together and bringing lasting peace to our beloved country.”

The head of strategic relations at Afghanistan’s Ministry of Peace Affairs, Najiyah Anwari, said, “The delegation of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan government will be inclusive … in a way that it is able to represent Afghanistan well and to keep the achievements of Afghan people and their demands in the past two decades and fight for it.”

U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, which started nearly 19 years ago, after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has cost Washington almost $1 trillion and the lives of about American 2,400 military personnel.

Text of Agreement

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If the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan, will its military contractors stay? That’s not clear.

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The Washington Post: On Saturday night — right at midnight — the United States’ agreement with the Afghan Taliban is scheduled to take effect. While the agreement says the United States will withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, we know nothing of what it says about military contractors. But contractors have provided the lion’s share of U.S. military staffing in Afghanistan, and other post-9/11 wars. Here’s what you need to know about military contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq. The contractor force is largely hidden. Click here to read more (external link).

Envoys Gather in Doha for US-Taliban Deal-Signing

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Tolo News: Foreign ministers and representatives of almost 30 countries and international organizations in the region arrived in Doha on Friday to attend a planned signing ceremony for the US-Taliban deal, according to the political office of the Taliban in Qatar.  The signing is expected to happen on Saturday following a so-far successful weeklong period of a reduction in violence. Click here to read more (external link).

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